RESEARCH ARTICLES

Cite as: J. Yu et al., Science

10.1126/science.abc6284 (2020).

DNA vaccine protection against SARS-CoV-2 in rhesus

macaques
Jingyou Yu1*, Lisa H. Tostanoski1*, Lauren Peter1*, Noe B. Mercado1*, Katherine McMahan1*, Shant H.
Mahrokhian1*, Joseph P. Nkolola1*, Jinyan Liu1*, Zhenfeng Li1*, Abishek Chandrashekar1*, David R. Martinez2,
Carolin Loos3, Caroline Atyeo3, Stephanie Fischinger3, John S. Burke3, Matthew D. Slein3, Yuezhou Chen4,
Adam Zuiani4, Felipe J. N. Lelis4, Meghan Travers4, Shaghayegh Habibi4, Laurent Pessaint5, Alex Van Ry5,
Kelvin Blade5, Renita Brown5, Anthony Cook5, Brad Finneyfrock5, Alan Dodson5, Elyse Teow5, Jason Velasco5,
Roland Zahn6, Frank Wegmann6, Esther A. Bondzie1, Gabriel Dagotto1, Makda S. Gebre1, Xuan He1, Catherine
Jacob-Dolan1, Marinela Kirilova1, Nicole Kordana1, Zijin Lin1, Lori F. Maxfield1, Felix Nampanya1, Ramya
Nityanandam1, John D. Ventura1, Huahua Wan1, Yongfei Cai7, Bing Chen7,8, Aaron G. Schmidt3,8, Duane R.
Wesemann4,8, Ralph S. Baric2, Galit Alter3,8, Hanne Andersen5, Mark G. Lewis5, Dan H. Barouch1,3,8†

Downloaded from http://science.sciencemag.org/ on June 4, 2020

1
Center for Virology and Vaccine Research, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02215, USA. 2University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA. 3Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. 4Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston,
MA 02115, USA. 5Bioqual, Rockville, MD 20852, USA. 6Janssen Vaccines & Prevention BV, Leiden, Netherlands. 7Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
8
Massachusetts Consortium on Pathogen Readiness, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
*These authors contributed equally to this work.
†Corresponding author. Email: dbarouch@bidmc.harvard.edu

The global COVID-19 pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus has made the development of a vaccine a
top biomedical priority. In this study, we developed a series of DNA vaccine candidates expressing different
forms of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike (S) protein and evaluated them in 35 rhesus macaques. Vaccinated animals
developed humoral and cellular immune responses, including neutralizing antibody titers comparable to
those found in convalescent humans and macaques infected with SARS-CoV-2. Following vaccination, all
animals were challenged with SARS-CoV-2, and the vaccine encoding the full-length S protein resulted in
>3.1 and >3.7 log10 reductions in median viral loads in bronchoalveolar lavage and nasal mucosa,
respectively, as compared with sham controls. Vaccine-elicited neutralizing antibody titers correlated with
protective efficacy, suggesting an immune correlate of protection. These data demonstrate vaccine
protection against SARS-CoV-2 in nonhuman primates.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made the development of a safe,
effective, and deployable vaccine a critical global priority (1–
8). However, our understanding of immune correlates of pro-
tection to SARS-CoV-2 is currently very limited but is essen-
tial for the development of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and other
immunotherapeutic interventions. To facilitate the preclini-
cal evaluation of vaccine candidates, we recently developed a
rhesus macaque model of SARS-CoV-2 infection (9). In the
present study, we constructed a set of prototype DNA vac-
cines expressing various forms of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike (S)
protein and assessed their immunogenicity and protective
efficacy against SARS-CoV-2 viral challenge in rhesus
macaques.
Construction and immunogenicity of DNA vaccine
candidates
We produced a series of prototype DNA vaccines expressing
six variants of the SARS-CoV-2 S protein: 1) full-length (S), 2)
deletion of the cytoplasmic tail (S.dCT) (10), 3) deletion of
the transmembrane domain and cytoplasmic tail reflecting
the soluble ectodomain (S.dTM) (10), 4) S1 domain with a fol-
don trimerization tag (S1), 5) receptor-binding domain with
a foldon trimerization tag (RBD), and 6) a prefusion stabi-
lized soluble ectodomain with deletion of the furin cleavage
site, two proline mutations, and a foldon trimerization tag
(S.dTM.PP) (11–13) (Fig. 1A). Western blot analyses confirmed
expression in cell lysates for all the constructs and in culture
supernatants for the soluble S.dTM and S.dTM.PP constructs
(Fig. 1, B and C). Proteolytic cleavage of the secreted protein
was noted for S.dTM but not S.dTM.PP, presumably due to
mutation of the furin cleavage site in S.dTM.PP.
We immunized 35 adult rhesus macaques (6-12 years old)
with DNA vaccines in the following groups: S (N = 4), S.dCT
(N = 4), S.dTM (N = 4), S1 (N = 4), RBD (N = 4), S.dTM.PP (N
= 5), and sham controls (N = 10). Animals received 5 mg DNA
vaccines by the intramuscular route without adjuvant at
week 0 and week 3. After the boost immunization at week 5,
we observed S-specific binding antibodies by ELISA (Fig. 2A)

First release: 20 May 2020 www.sciencemag.org (Page numbers not final at time of first release) 1
and neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) using both a pseudovirus
neutralization assay (10) (Fig. 2B) and a live virus neutraliza-
tion assay (14, 15) (Fig. 2C). Two animals had binding anti-
bodies at baseline by ELISA, which we speculate might reflect
cross-reactivity of other natural primate coronaviruses. NAb
titers measured by the pseudovirus neutralization assay cor-
related with NAb titers measured by the live virus neutraliza-
tion assay (P < 0.0001, R = 0.8052, two-sided Spearman rank-
correlation test; fig. S1). Moreover, NAb titers in the vac-
cinated macaques (median titer 74; median titer in the S and
S.dCT groups 170) were comparable in magnitude to NAb ti-
ters in a cohort of 9 convalescent macaques (median titer
106) and a cohort of 27 convalescent humans (median titer
93) who had recovered from SARS-CoV-2 infection (Fig. 2D).
S-specific and RBD-specific antibodies in the vaccinated
macaques included diverse subclasses and effector functions,
including antibody-dependent neutrophil phagocytosis
(ADNP), antibody-dependent complement deposition
(ADCD), antibody-dependent monocyte cellular phagocytosis
(ADCP), and antibody-dependent NK cell activation (IFN-γ
secretion, CD107a degranulation, and MIP-1β expression) (16)
(Fig. 2E). A trend toward higher ADCD responses was ob-
served in the S and S.dCT groups, whereas higher NK cell ac-
tivation was observed in the RBD and S.dTM.PP groups. A
principal component analysis of the functional and biophys-
ical antibody features showed overlap of the different vaccine
groups, with more distinct profiles in the S and RBD groups
(Fig. 2E).
We also observed cellular immune responses to pooled S
peptides in the majority of vaccinated animals by IFN-γ
ELISPOT assays at week 5 (Fig. 3A). Intracellular cytokine
staining assays at week 5 demonstrated induction of S-spe-
cific IFN-γ+ CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses, with lower re-
sponses induced by the shorter S1 and RBD immunogens
(Fig. 3B). S-specific IL-4+ CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses
were marginal (Fig. 3C), suggesting induction of Th1-biased
cellular immune responses.
Protective efficacy against SARS-CoV-2 challenge
At week 6, which was 3 weeks after the boost immunization,
all animals were challenged with 1.2 × 108 VP (1.1 × 104 PFU)
SARS-CoV-2, administered as 1 ml by the intranasal (IN)
route and 1 ml by the intratracheal (IT) route. Following chal-
lenge, we assessed viral RNA levels by RT-PCR (17) in bron-
choalveolar lavage (BAL) and nasal swabs (NS). Viral RNA
was negative in plasma, and animals exhibited only mild clin-
ical symptoms. High levels of viral RNA were observed in the
sham controls with a median peak of 6.46 (range 4.81-7.99)
log10 RNA copies/ml in BAL and a median peak of 6.82 (range
5.96-7.96) log10 RNA copies/swab in NS (fig. S2). Lower levels
of viral RNA were observed in the vaccine groups (figs. S3 and
S4), including 1.92 and 2.16 log10 reductions of median peak
First release: 20 May 2020 www.sciencemag.org
viral RNA in BAL and NS, respectively, in S vaccinated animals
compared with sham controls (P = 0.02 and P = 0.04, two-sided
Mann-Whitney tests) (fig. S5). Viral RNA assays were con-
firmed by PFU assays, which similarly showed lower infectious
virus titers in S vaccinated animals compared with sham con-
trols (P = 0.04, two-sided Mann-Whitney test) (fig. S5).
We speculated that a substantial fraction of viral RNA in
BAL and NS following challenge represented input challenge
virus, and thus we also assessed levels of subgenomic mRNA
(sgmRNA), which is believed to reflect viral replication cellu-
lar intermediates that are not packaged into virions and thus
putative replicating virus in cells (18). High levels of sgmRNA
were observed in the sham controls (Fig. 4A) with a median
peak of 5.35 (range 3.97-6.95) log10 sgmRNA copies/ml in BAL
and a median peak of 6.40 (range 4.91-7.01) log10 sgmRNA
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copies/swab in NS. Peak viral loads occurred variably on day
1-4 following challenge. Markedly lower levels of sgmRNA
were observed in the vaccine groups (Fig. 4, B and C), includ-
ing >3.1 and >3.7 log10 decreases of median peak sgmRNA in
BAL and NS, respectively, in S vaccinated animals compared
with sham controls (P = 0.03 and P = 0.01, two-sided Mann-
Whitney tests) (Fig. 4D). Reduced levels of sgmRNA were also
observed in other vaccine groups, including S.dCT, S1, RBD,
and S.dTM.PP, although minimal to no protection was seen
in the S.dTM group, confirming the importance of prefusion
ectodomain stabilization, as reported previously (13). Protec-
tion was generally more robust in BAL compared with NS,
particularly for the less immunogenic constructs. A total of 8
of 25 vaccinated animals exhibited no detectable sgmRNA in
BAL and NS at any timepoint following challenge.
Immune correlates of vaccine-induced protection
The variability in protective efficacy in this study facilitated
an analysis of immune correlates of protection. The log10
pseudovirus NAb titer at week 5 inversely correlated with
peak log10 sgmRNA in both BAL (P < 0.0001, R = −0.6877,
two-sided Spearman rank-correlation test) and NS (P =
0.0199, R = −0.4162) (Fig. 5A). Similarly, the log10 live virus
NAb titer at week 5 inversely correlated with peak log10
sgmRNA levels in both BAL (P < 0.0001, R = −0.7702) and NS
(P = 0.1006, R = −0.3360) (Fig. 5B). These data suggest that
vaccine-elicited serum NAb titers may be immune correlates
of protection against SARS-CoV-2 challenge. We speculate
that correlations were more robust with viral loads in BAL
compared with viral loads in NS due to intrinsic variability of
collecting swabs. The log10 ELISA titer at week 5 also inversely
correlated with peak log10 sgmRNA levels in BAL (P = 0.0041,
R = −0.4733) (fig. S6). Vaccine-elicited ELISPOT responses
(fig. S7), CD4+ ICS responses (fig. S8), and CD8+ ICS re-
sponses (fig. S9) did not correlate with protection.
We next explored the potential contribution of other anti-
body effector functions to immune correlates of protection.
(Page numbers not final at time of first release) 2
In addition to NAb titers, S- and RBD-specific ADCD re-
sponses inversely correlated with peak log10 sgmRNA levels
in BAL (Fig. 5C, top panel). Two orthogonal unbiased ma-
chine learning approaches were then utilized to define mini-
mal combined correlates of protection. A nonlinear random
forest regression analysis and a linear partial least squares
regression analysis showed that utilizing two features im-
proved the correlations with protection, such as RBD-specific
FcγR2a-1 binding with ADCD responses, or NAb titers with
RBD-specific IgG2 responses (Fig. 5C, bottom left panel).
Moreover, NAb titers correlated with most antibody effector
functions, except for antibody-mediated NK cell activation
(Fig. 5C, bottom right panel). Taken together, these data sug-
gest a primary role of NAbs in protecting against SARS-CoV-
2, supported by certain innate immune effector functions
such as ADCD.
Finally, we compared antibody parameters in the vac-
cinated animals that were completely protected (defined as
no detectable sgmRNA following challenge) with the vac-
cinated animals that were partially protected (defined as de-
tectable sgmRNA following challenge). Completely protected
animals showed higher log10 NAb titers (P = 0.0004, two-
sided Mann-Whitney test), RBD-specific ADCD responses (P
= 0.0001), S-specific RBD responses (P = 0.0010), and RBD-
specific ADCP responses (P = 0.0005) compared with par-
tially protected animals (Fig. 5D).
Anamnestic immune responses following challenge
All animals exhibited anamnestic humoral and cellular im-
mune responses following challenge, including increased
ELISA titers (fig. S10), pseudovirus NAb titers (fig. S11), live
virus NAb titers (fig. S12), and IFN-γ ELISPOT responses (fig.
S13) on day 14 after challenge. These data suggest that vac-
cine protection was probably not sterilizing, including in the
8 of 25 animals that had no detectable sgmRNA in BAL and
NS at any timepoint following challenge, but rather was likely
mediated by rapid virologic control following challenge.
Discussion
A safe and effective SARS-CoV-2 vaccine may be required to
end the global COVID-19 pandemic. Several vaccine candi-
dates have initiated clinical testing, and many others are in
preclinical development (19, 20). However, very little is cur-
rently known about immune correlates of protection and pro-
tective efficacy of candidate SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in animal
models. In this study, we generated a series of prototype DNA
vaccines expressing various S immunogens and assessed pro-
tective efficacy against intranasal and intratracheal SARS-
CoV-2 challenge in rhesus macaques. We demonstrate vac-
cine protection with substantial >3.1 and >3.7 log10 reductions
in median viral loads in BAL and NS, respectively, in S im-
munized animals compared with sham controls. Protection
First release: 20 May 2020 www.sciencemag.org
was likely not sterilizing but instead appeared to be mediated
by rapid immunologic control following challenge.
Our data extend previous studies on SARS and MERS vac-
cine protection in mice, ferrets, and macaques (10, 21–24).
Phase 1 clinical studies for SARS and MERS vaccine candi-
dates have also been conducted (25), but these vaccines have
not been tested for efficacy in humans. Our data suggest that
vaccine protection against SARS-CoV-2 in macaques is feasi-
ble. We observed a dramatic reduction of viral replication in
both the upper respiratory tract and the lower respiratory
tract with the optimal vaccines. In contrast, the less immu-
nogenic vaccines, such as S.dTM, showed partial protection
in BAL but essentially no protection in NS. These data sug-
gest that it may be easier to protect against lower respiratory
tract disease compared with upper respiratory tract disease.
Downloaded from http://science.sciencemag.org/ on June 4, 2020
In the present study, optimal protection was achieved with
the full-length S immunogen in both the upper and lower res-
piratory tracts, and reduced protection was observed with
soluble constructs and smaller fragments. Our study did not
address the question of whether emerging mutations in the
SARS-CoV-2 S sequence may mediate escape from NAb
responses induced by immunogens designed from the
Wuhan/WIV04/2019 sequence.
Further research will need to address the important ques-
tions of the durability of protective immunity and the optimal
vaccine platforms for a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine for humans (26).
Although our data are restricted to DNA vaccines, we believe
that our findings should be generalizable to other gene-based
vaccines as well, including RNA vaccines and recombinant
vector-based vaccines. Additional research should also evalu-
ate vaccine immunogenicity and protective efficacy in older
animals. Further studies will also need to address the ques-
tion of enhanced respiratory disease, which may result from
antibody-dependent enhancement (27–29). Although our
study was not designed to address safety issues, it is worth
noting that the DNA vaccines induced Th1 rather than Th2
responses, and we did not observe enhanced clinical disease
even with the suboptimal vaccine constructs that failed to
protect.
We identified serum NAb titers, as measured by two inde-
pendent assays (pseudovirus neutralization and live virus
neutralization), as a significant correlate of protection in this
study against both lower respiratory tract disease as well as
upper respiratory tract disease. It is likely that protection in
both anatomic compartments will be necessary for pandemic
control, although protection in the upper respiratory tract
may be more difficult to achieve. If this NAb correlate proves
generalizable across multiple vaccine studies in both NHPs
and humans, then this parameter would be a simple and use-
ful benchmark for clinical development of SARS-CoV-2 vac-
cines. Innate immune effector functions such as ADCD may
also contribute to protective efficacy. In summary, we
(Page numbers not final at time of first release) 3
demonstrate effective vaccine protection against SARS-CoV-
2 in rhesus macaques and define NAb titers as an immune
correlate of protection, which will accelerate the develop-
ment of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines for humans.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank D. Lauffenburger, T. Orekov, A. Thomas, M. Porto, N. Thornburg, P. Abbink,
E. Borducchi, M. Silva, A. Richardson, C. Caron, and J. Cwiak for generous advice,
assistance, and reagents. Funding: We acknowledge support from the Ragon
Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard, Mark and Lisa Schwartz Foundation, Beth
Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Massachusetts Consortium on Pathogen
Readiness (MassCPR), Janssen Vaccines & Prevention BV, and the National
Institutes of Health (OD024917, AI129797, AI124377, AI128751, AI126603 to
D.H.B.; AI007151 to D.R.M.; AI146779 to A.G.S.; AI121394, AI139538 to D.R.W.;
272201700036I-0-759301900131-1, AI100625, AI110700, AI132178, AI149644,
AI108197 to R.S.B.). We also acknowledge a Burroughs Wellcome Fund
Postdoctoral Enrichment Program Award to D.R.M. Author contributions:
D.H.B. designed the study. J.Y., L.H.T., L.P., N.B.M., K.M., S.H.M., J.P.N., J.L.,
Z.L., A.C., E.A.B., G.D., M.S.G., X.H., C.J.D., M.K., N.K., Z.L., L.F.M., F.N., R.N., J.V.,
and H.W. performed the immunologic and virologic assays. D.R.M. and R.S.B.
performed the live virus neutralization assays. C.L., C.A., S.F., J.S.B., M.D.S., and
G.A. performed the systems serology. Y.C., A.Z., F.J.N.L., M.T., S.H., and D.R.W.
provided the convalescent human specimens. L.P., A.V.R., K.B., R.B., A.C., B.F.,
A.D., E.T., J.D.V., H.A., and M.G.L. led the clinical care of the animals. R.Z. and
F.W. participated in study design and interpretation of data. Y.C., B.C., and A.G.S.
provided purified proteins. D.H.B., J.L., Z.L., and B.C. designed the immunogens.
D.H.B. wrote the paper with all co-authors. Competing interests: The authors
declare no competing financial interests. D.H.B. is a co-inventor on related
vaccine patents. R.Z. and F.W. are employees of Janssen Vaccines & Prevention
BV. Data and materials availability: All data are available in the manuscript or
the supplementary materials. Correspondence and requests for materials should
be addressed to D.H.B. (dbarouch@bidmc.harvard.edu). This work is licensed
under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license,
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited. To view a copy of this license, visit
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. This license does not apply to
figures/photos/artwork or other content included in the article that is credited
to a third party; obtain authorization from the rights holder before using such
material.

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Fig. 1. Construction of candidate DNA vaccines against SARS-CoV-2.
(A) Six DNA vaccines were produced expressing different SARS-CoV-2
Spike (S) variants: 1) full-length (S), 2) deletion of the cytoplasmic tail
(S.dCT), 3) deletion of the transmembrane domain and cytoplasmic tail
reflecting the soluble ectodomain (S.dTM), 4) S1 domain with a foldon
trimerization tag (S1), 5) receptor-binding domain with a foldon
trimerization tag (RBD), and a 6) prefusion stabilized soluble
ectodomain with deletion of the furin cleavage site, two proline
mutations, and a foldon trimerization tag (S.dTM.PP). Open square
depicts foldon trimerization tag; red lines depict proline mutations. (B)
Western blot analyses for expression from DNA vaccines encoding S
(lane 1), S.dCT (lane 2), S.dTM (lane 3), and S.dTM.PP (lane 4) in cell
lysates and culture supernatants using an anti-SARS polyclonal antibody
(BEI Resources). (C) Western blot analyses for expression from DNA
vaccines encoding S1 (lane 1) and RBD (lane 2) in cell lysates using an
anti-SARS-CoV-2 RBD polyclonal antibody (Sino Biological).

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Fig. 2. Humoral immune responses in vaccinated rhesus macaques. Humoral immune responses were assessed
following immunization by (A) binding antibody ELISA, (B) pseudovirus neutralization assays, and (C) live virus
neutralization assays. (D) Comparison of pseudovirus neutralization titers in vaccinated macaques (all animals and S
/ S.dCT groups), a cohort of 9 convalescent macaques, and a cohort of 27 convalescent humans from Boston, United
States who had recovered from SARS-CoV-2 infection. (E) S- and RBD-specific antibody-dependent neutrophil
phagocytosis (ADNP), antibody-dependent complement deposition (ADCD), antibody-dependent monocyte cellular
phagocytosis (ADCP), and antibody-dependent NK cell activation (IFN-γ secretion, CD107a degranulation, and MIP-1β
expression) are shown. Radar plots show the distribution of antibody features across the vaccine groups. The size and
color intensity of the wedges indicate the median of the feature for the corresponding group (blue depicts antibody
functions, red depicts antibody isotype/subclass/FcγR binding). The principal component analysis (PCA) plot shows
the multivariate antibody profiles across groups. Each dot represents an animal, the color of the dot denotes the group,
and the ellipses shows the distribution of the groups as 70% confidence levels assuming a multivariate normal
distribution. Red bars reflect median responses. Dotted lines reflect assay limit of detection.

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Fig. 3. Cellular immune responses in vaccinated rhesus macaques. Cellular immune responses were
assessed at week 5 following immunization by (A) IFN-γ ELISPOT assays and (B) IFN-γ+ and (C) IL-4+
intracellular cytokine staining assays for CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in response to pooled S peptides. Red
bars reflect median responses.

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Fig. 4. Viral loads in rhesus macaques challenged with SARS-CoV-2 virus. Rhesus macaques were challenged
by the intranasal and intratracheal route with 1.2 × 108 VP (1.1 × 104 PFU) SARS-CoV-2. (A) Log10 sgmRNA
copies/ml or copies/swab (limit 50 copies) were assessed in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) and nasal swabs
(NS) in sham controls at multiple timepoints following challenge. (B) Log10 sgmRNA copies/ml in BAL and (C)
log10 sgmRNA copies/swab in NS in vaccinated animals at multiple timepoints following challenge. (D) Summary
of peak viral loads in BAL and NS following challenge. Peak viral loads occurred variably on day 1-4 following
challenge. Red lines reflect median viral loads. P-values indicate two-sided Mann-Whitney tests.

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Fig. 5. Immune correlates of protection. Correlations of (A) pseudovirus NAb titers and (B) live NAb titers prior to
challenge with log peak sgmRNA copies/ml in BAL or log peak sgmRNA copies/swab in nasal swabs following
challenge. Red lines reflect the best-fit relationship between these variables. P and R values reflect two-sided
Spearman rank-correlation tests. (C) The heat map (top panel) shows the Spearman and Pearson correlations
between antibody features and log10 peak sgmRNA copies/ml in BAL (*q < 0.05, **q < 0.01, ***q < 0.001 with
Benjamini-Hochberg correction for multiple testing). The bar graph (bottom left panel) shows the rank of the
Pearson correlation between cross-validated model predictions and data using the most predictive combination or
individual antibody features for partial least square regression (PLSR) and random forest regression (RFR). The
correlation heatmap (bottom right panel) represents pairwise Pearson correlations between features across all
animals. (D) The heat map (top panel) shows the difference in the means of the z-scored features between the
completely protected and partially protected animals (**q < 0.01 with Benjamini-Hochberg correction for multiple
testing). The dot plots show differences in log10 NAb titers, RBD-specific ADCD responses, S-specific ADCD
responses, and RBD-specific ADCP responses between the completely protected and partially protected animals. P-
values indicate two-sided Mann-Whitney tests.

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DNA vaccine protection against SARS-CoV-2 in rhesus macaques
Jingyou Yu, Lisa H. Tostanoski, Lauren Peter, Noe B. Mercado, Katherine McMahan, Shant H. Mahrokhian, Joseph P. Nkolola,
Jinyan Liu, Zhenfeng Li, Abishek Chandrashekar, David R. Martinez, Carolin Loos, Caroline Atyeo, Stephanie Fischinger, John S.
Burke, Matthew D. Slein, Yuezhou Chen, Adam Zuiani, Felipe J. N. Lelis, Meghan Travers, Shaghayegh Habibi, Laurent Pessaint,
Alex Van Ry, Kelvin Blade, Renita Brown, Anthony Cook, Brad Finneyfrock, Alan Dodson, Elyse Teow, Jason Velasco, Roland
Zahn, Frank Wegmann, Esther A. Bondzie, Gabriel Dagotto, Makda S. Gebre, Xuan He, Catherine Jacob-Dolan, Marinela Kirilova,
Nicole Kordana, Zijin Lin, Lori F. Maxfield, Felix Nampanya, Ramya Nityanandam, John D. Ventura, Huahua Wan, Yongfei Cai, Bing
Chen, Aaron G. Schmidt, Duane R. Wesemann, Ralph S. Baric, Galit Alter, Hanne Andersen, Mark G. Lewis and Dan H. Barouch

published online May 20, 2020

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